


Cause and Effect

by vysila



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 20:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5512790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vysila/pseuds/vysila
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Prompts were: "The Soldier's Poem" by Muse, post-apocalypse, peace of mind</p></blockquote>





	Cause and Effect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mayamaia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayamaia/gifts).



Tonight is the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, a night when hope is at its lowest ebb. In less sophisticated times, my ancestors would keep many fires burning in the mistaken belief that they could tip the balance between light and dark. We know now that correlation does not necessarily imply causation, but that doesn’t keep us from our comforting rituals.

Is that why I have waited hours out here in the cold, keeping a lonely and pointless vigil? The wind coming off the East River slices through me, sharp as the knife strapped to my left calf. 

In front of me the majority of windows of the UN complex are lit, a testament to the ongoing efforts to avert something that feels inevitable.

Napoleon is somewhere in that bastion of civilized compromise, accompanying an increasingly frail Alexander Waverly. Diplomacy. Negotiation. Words and reason are their weapons of choice, and they wield them with great skill. That is their way. It is not mine. I never had much faith in words to begin with, but now there is none. Not even in Napoleon’s words.

I turn to face the other direction, mostly to shelter my frozen face from the biting wind, but still I swallow daggers with every breath. This view is equally disheartening. From my vantage point here on the Tudor Place overpass, I can see down 42nd Street. This close to Christmas it should be clogged with rush hour traffic, thronged with hungry office workers pondering dinner destinations and shoppers rushing from storefront to storefront in search of the perfect gift for a loved one. 

There are no children laughing as they build snowmen in the twin playgrounds to either side of the broad, silent street. The only activity is a lone taxicab passing through the Second Avenue intersection and some pedestrians climbing the stairs into the small Presbyterian Church half a block away. I imagine I can hear a snatch of sound from their Möller organ and voices lifted in comforting, prayerful song.

Instead of the cheerful, warming holiday lights in apartment windows, there is only the reflected blue flickering from television screens. People are home, trying to pretend they are safe within their walls and waiting for words that will confirm this delusion. 

A missile launch – with the threat of more to come – does tend to have this effect. 

I am a child of hardship, born into a land and time where starvation and war were a fact of life. There was no other reality for me until I was a teenager. For me, and others like me, the safety of delusion does not exist. But despite everything Napoleon has seen and done with UNCLE, he never knew deprivation as a child. His view of humanity was shaped by a childhood that knew security and plenty.

What would Napoleon think of my melancholy thoughts tonight? He once told Captain Shark that the only safety for our world lay in agreements between men. Tonight he works tirelessly toward that end. His natural optimism, his belief in his power to shape events and bend others to his will, permits no other course.

I would contemplate a different course, but none suggest themselves to my mind. I have already done that which I could, that which I was commanded to do, a mission that took me to a remote location above the Arctic Circle. And I had not been tasked with diplomacy.

The crunch of footfalls in otherwise unmarked snow warns me before I hear his voice. “Illya?”

So. The negotiations have ended. Too soon, too early. And now I feel it between my shoulder blades and in my chest, a surprising telltale ache of despair; a fragment of hope I had not known I still cherished until it was extinguished.

I wonder if we still have time to spirit Mr. Waverly safely away to the reserve command HQ before everything falls apart.

“Napoleon?”

Perversely, I school myself to patience and wait to hear the words I both expect and dread. Instead, Napoleon slings his arm around my shoulders. I hear affection and amusement in his voice, but I always hear that when he talks to me. 

“Have you been out here all this time, brooding like a pessimistic peasant and freezing your ass off to boot?”

This is not how I expected our conversation to go, but it is just like Napoleon to engage in pointless frivolity, even at a time like this. “It isn’t pessimism to acknowledge reality.”

“Oh ye of little faith.” Napoleon’s hand slips around the back of my neck, the better to duck my head forward.

He is too confident, too lighthearted for the gravity of the situation, but that is his way. I tolerate the gesture and then shrug myself free. “Are you here to tell me that the talks have succeeded, then?”

“Not precisely. But now they understand the danger in not uniting against this threat.”

“I thought they understood this three days ago when Thrush handed us their ultimatum. Does it really take a nuclear missile launch to make them understand?” My frustration, my fear, my exhaustion, bled around the words. I know Napoleon heard that as well.

Napoleon placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me around to face him. I don't know what he expected to see in my face as he stared at me but I felt again the force of his will and the power of his belief. "A launch that was intercepted and destroyed over the ocean. And because we had our best man on the ground, that entire launch facility is now destroyed."

I already knew what I had done. But I also knew it wasn't enough. "They have other bases, more resources, Napoleon. One base, one missile, a few hundred troops, or a thousand, that is nothing to Thrush." 

"But the world powers see the threat now. They understand now. We're not alone in this battle any more, Illya. Or we won't be soon."

I resisted his seductive promises. "It won't be enough."

"It will be. I promise you, it will be." He smiled. "Trust me."

So familiar. _Trust me,_ he says. _Follow me off this cliff. Like you've done so many times before._

So tempting to fall under the spell of his words, to join his arrogant belief that together we could change the world. 

I'd not had many choices in my life. My mother told me to run and hide when the Nazi's marched into Kiev – and I did, without question. My government ordered me to join UNCLE – and I did without question. 

But I had a choice now. Surrender to a lifetime of experiences that argued defeat, or ally myself with someone who believed in both of us more than I did.

"Illya, please. I need to know we're in this together." 

I snorted and realized my decision was made. "Not exactly together, Napoleon. Once again, I seem to have drawn all the dirty and hard jobs while you play with the wealthy and powerful."

I expected a laugh, a pat on the shoulder, the kind of easy, dismissive response he so often bestows on others. He offered none of those, only a steady, honest gaze. “Yes.”

I understood. We each had our strengths and weaknesses, our roles to play in this high-stakes game of world peace. As with light and dark, sometimes one must play with fire to bring things back into balance.

A tiny kernel of hope rekindles in my chest. Because sometimes correlation does imply causation.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts were: "The Soldier's Poem" by Muse, post-apocalypse, peace of mind


End file.
